Voices of the Our Sansar Birgunj children’s home’s youth were heard around the world Wednesday for International Youth Day.
As part of an online campaign, the boys told world leaders what they want their future to look like and how they can achieve it.
In the lead up to and throughout the day’s activities, the home’s 17 residents sent messages and pictures through the twitter and Facebook handle #youthday and #youthpower – to United Nations leaders and its Youth Envoy.
With the help of staff and volunteer Katie, the boys started off the day with a lesson in sustainability and planting the seeds of the future by recycling old oil bottles into flower planters for the home’s garden.
The bottles were cut in half to make pots and the residents sowed flowers and mango trees.
“We organized an environmental workshop, which was aimed at talking about reusing, recycling and taking care of our environment,” Katie said.
The theme for this year’s events was civic engagement and later in the day Katie gave the boys a special “My Future” workshop and English lesson.
“The children and youth learned about different jobs and occupations in English, and played games and made posters to practise their newly acquired knowledge,” Katie said.
“As the younger participants got tired, older youth participated in a second part of this workshop, that was aimed at introducing the Global Goals for Sustainable Development and discussing what we think is wrong in the world, whose responsibility it is to tackle this and what we expect from our futures.”
They spoke about what they can do to achieve the future they want and what they need others to do, such as their community, government and other countries.
“All our posters and photos are currently being shared online and the powerful messages of the Our Sansar youth are being spread world-wide – I dare say the campaign was a success,” Katie said.
“We’re confident that these young men will go on to be constructive, powerful members of the international community.”
The day was important because in September world leaders will meet in the UN to announce a new set of global goals, the Sustainable Development Goals.
These will aim to shape the future of people and planet by ending poverty, inequality and climate change and campaigners were asking the world’s young people to make sure they were involved in the process.
Even before the day got started the residents had been posting special “power pose” photos of them standing strong in asking for a brighter future.
The #youthday handle trended well throughout the day and had more than 90,000 tweets added.
To find out more people can visit Facebook or twitter @oursansar
